Kidnapped eBook

The captain was in the right of it. We had run
down a boat in the fog, and she had parted in the
midst and gone to the bottom with all her crew but
one. This man (as I heard afterwards) had been
sitting in the stern as a passenger, while the rest
were on the benches rowing. At the moment of
the blow, the stern had been thrown into the air, and
the man (having his hands free, and for all he was
encumbered with a frieze overcoat that came below
his knees) had leaped up and caught hold of the brig’s
bowsprit. It showed he had luck and much agility
and unusual strength, that he should have thus saved
himself from such a pass. And yet, when the captain
brought him into the round-house, and I set eyes on
him for the first time, he looked as cool as I did.

He was smallish in stature, but well set and as nimble
as a goat; his face was of a good open expression,
but sunburnt very dark, and heavily freckled and pitted
with the small-pox; his eyes were unusually light
and had a kind of dancing madness in them, that was
both engaging and alarming; and when he took off his
great-coat, he laid a pair of fine silver-mounted
pistols on the table, and I saw that he was belted
with a great sword. His manners, besides, were
elegant, and he pledged the captain handsomely.
Altogether I thought of him, at the first sight, that
here was a man I would rather call my friend than my
enemy.

The captain, too, was taking his observations, but
rather of the man’s clothes than his person.
And to be sure, as soon as he had taken off the great-coat,
he showed forth mighty fine for the round-house of
a merchant brig: having a hat with feathers,
a red waistcoat, breeches of black plush, and a blue
coat with silver buttons and handsome silver lace;
costly clothes, though somewhat spoiled with the fog
and being slept in.

“I’m vexed, sir, about the boat,”
says the captain.

“There are some pretty men gone to the bottom,”
said the stranger, “that I would rather see
on the dry land again than half a score of boats.”

“Friends of yours?” said Hoseason.

“You have none such friends in your country,”
was the reply. “They would have died for
me like dogs.”

“Well, sir,” said the captain, still watching
him, “there are more men in the world than boats
to put them in.”

“And that’s true, too,” cried the
other, “and ye seem to be a gentleman of great
penetration.”

“I have been in France, sir,” says the
captain, so that it was plain he meant more by the
words than showed upon the face of them.

“Well, sir,” says the other, “and
so has many a pretty man, for the matter of that.”

“No doubt, sir” says the captain, “and
fine coats.”

“Oho!” says the stranger, “is that
how the wind sets?” And he laid his hand quickly
on his pistols.

“Don’t be hasty,” said the captain.
“Don’t do a mischief before ye see the
need of it. Ye’ve a French soldier’s
coat upon your back and a Scotch tongue in your head,
to be sure; but so has many an honest fellow in these
days, and I dare say none the worse of it.”